I think, go far to establish the claim which I last week made for the Modern Languages.

In French the high-water mark is higher. The same system of sentences done without help and of continuous Prose is the most successful. There are endless good books

of Prose Selections.

As in Construing Books, the best are those whose subject-matter is the best chosen; the notes are a matter of less importance.

I should like now to show you some portion of the teaching which can be got out of each page of your construing lessons. I will give you as a preliminary one golden rule.

Always prepare, however well you may know the language in general and the book which you are doing in particular. Only so will you make the most of your lesson and temper discursiveness with variety and compactness.

Now let me ask you to read through the following passage:

Mais comment arriver au Capitole tant que les ennemis occuperaient la ville?- Pontius Cominius s'offrit pour cette mission périlleuse. Ce jeune Romain, à force de prudence et d'énergie, parvint à tromper la vigilance des ennemis, et fut assez heureux pour rapporter la nomination de Camille comme dictateur. Mais Pontius, qui avait dû gravir un rocher très-escarpé, avait laissé des traces de son passage. Les herbes couchées et la terre éboulée en plusieurs endroits montrèrent aux Gaulois qu'il y avait un chemin accessible pour conduire au Capitole. Ils se mirent en devoir, au milieu de la nuit, de profiter de cette découverte. Ils étaient sur le point de se rendre maîtres des retranchements, car personne ne les avait entendus, lorsque les oies sacrées que l'on entretenait dans le Capitole, près du temple de Junon, coururent aux Gaulois avec de grands cris et en un instant réveillèrent tous les Romains. Plutarque fait

remarquer que les oies ont l'ouïe très-fine, que celles du Capitole étaient assez mal nourries depuis le siége, et qu'elles s'effrayèrent d'autant plus facilement à l'approche des Gaulois, que la faim les tenait éveillées.

It is taken almost at random from a book with which I am better pleased each time I use it, 'Les Petites Ignorances de la Conversation', by M. Rozan. It has no notes but it is full of history as well as of stray information, it is witty, it is written in good style, and it has just a sufficient number of quotations from older authors to make it serve for you to give a good deal of the history of the language if you care to do so. Also, and this is a merit which all teachers will welcome, it is sufficiently difficult to make exposure probable for the idle boy who, knowing a good deal of French, presumes to neglect his lesson, and to make such exposure certain if you begin by a few questions on the subject-matter. After the translation of each paragraph or sentence you ask questions on the grammar. "Arriver is Infinitive: with what exact meaning?" "What instance does your grammar give?" "Dire que cela est vrai! is that a similar infinitive?" "Has the English language a similar use?" "Has the German?" "Has the Latin?" Occuperaient: "We translate by the English imperfect 'were in possession of', but it is Conditional. Which is the more accurate logically?" "Give another instance where French pays more attention to tense than English." Ville gives you an opportunity for a remark on the pronunciation of ll. Jeune Romain suggests the question why Romain is here written with a capital letter. À force de you call attention to as a turn to be noted, illustrating by the English 'by dint of', and you will ask this next lesson to see who has stored it up, or next minute of the idler in the far corner, or of the eager but inattentive boy who turned on to a new page when you paused to

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A PAGE OF FRENCH CONSTRUING.

question. Parvint à: "Could you say also réussit à?" "Yes." "Could you say succéda à?" "No." "Then why did you write succéder for 'to succeed in an undertaking' in your last exercise, which you will receive back shortly duly underlined, and what does succéder à mean?" Ennemi: Note the spelling and the pronunciation, and per contra ennui.

POUR rapporter is also noted. Avait dû introduces the whole subject of the compound tenses of the verbs of mood and the special distinction between English on the one hand and French, German, Latin, on the other; and you ask your pet sentences with varied success.

Endroits suggests a caution as to the use of the French place which had proved a pitfall in your last exercise. Gaulois is distinguished from Gallois; profiter de is noted for vocabulary, as are mirent en devoir and éboulée. Retranchement

=

'entrenchment' suggests a few other instances of words which are like yet different in French and English, e.g. explication = 'explanation'. Les avait entendus gives opportunity if the Form need it for drill in the participle rules, and de grands cris similarly brings up the syntax of the article, and fait remarquer leads up to a question or two on the construction with faire. "Why has l'ouïe the definite article?" "And can you give me the names of the four other senses ?" This you make a general question and suggest that they write in their note-books in parallel columns the senses in French and Latin and German, pointing out that the French words are directly derived from the Latin. Little natural groupings of words such as this are easily remembered. Celles enables you to enforce the construction of celui on the backward boys; mal similarly reminds them of pis and moins, and other traps for the unwary. D'autant...que is a useful construction, often misconstrued, and you are glad to have an instance of it, and the

lesson ends with an article which calls for comment, and another past participle. You do not of course dwell at length on all of these points, which are of very various importance and various level: you make your selection. But what I have said may serve to convince you that so far from your French construing books being deficient in matter for teaching, they are too full.

One more hint and I will pass on. You will find in French almost inevitably that for some of your boys the lesson is too easy. You can employ their time to good purpose by exacting from them a written list of idioms from the lesson, or properly classified examples of certain syntax rules, and so show them that there is more to be learnt from a few pages of French than is involved in the rapid acquisition of their meaning. You can also, if you prefer it, make them do a Philological exercise on a portion of the lesson; and this brings us to the consideration of the place which the Historical Study of Modern Languages should occupy. I have not time to discuss the question as fully as its importance deserves, and I must be content to do little more than state my own conclusions. In the first place let me remind you that philology, though as a science it is advancing, is also becoming much more difficult, so much so that many good teachers are beginning to doubt the wisdom of teaching it in the schools at all. In the next place, I would insist upon the importance of distinguishing between Mediaeval and Modern Languages, and of recognising that if your time is limited, what is given to philology is lost to literature. On the other hand, the development of French, so far as derived from Latin, is so clear, and the sound-changes so certainly traceable through the various stages of the literature, and the sound-changes also exhibited by German and English so obvious within certain limits, and

C. L.

6

the whole subject of derivations so interesting as an accessory of language lessons, that I hope we shall always find time for a certain amount of philology. Again, if more of our classical scholars study French and German seriously, for them philology is more natural and useful, nor is it a slight gain if we can show to all boys how language, treated thus, affords evidence to the student of the history of primitive ages, and takes up the tale where written records begin to fail.

I would not forego the chance of inspiring even one pupil to take up as his life-work the science of language. By these considerations on the one side and the other, I would have you steer your course in this matter. But I would warn you that it is your duty to consider what it is that your pupils want most, and that if the choice lies between Mediaeval French and a third Modern Language, say Italian or Spanish, for nine-tenths of them you ought in all probability to choose the Modern Language, and if your pupils do not learn Latin, you had better leave philology alone.

As a matter of practice I do personally always introduce a little philology into my French lessons, and as an introduction to the subject I say to them, 'French is only bad Latin badly pronounced', and point out by the way what a wonderful thing human speech must be, since by so barbarous a process has been perfected an instrument so delicate and beautiful as French is in the hands of a great writer. And I always use an illustration which I owe to Professor Freeman in order to drive this nail home. I write up on the board these three sentences: